The Black List Opens Database to Student Producers and Directors

Beginning Thursday, the Black List is opening up its database of screenplays to students training to be producers and directors at selected college programs. The first school to take part will be Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University.

Screenwriters hosting their scripts on the Black List website will have the option to make their screenplays available to be seen by student producers and directors, who will be given free membership to the site.

“With the cost of production continuing to decrease, we noticed that many undergraduate and graduate programs — Chapman’s Dodge School in particular — are encouraging their students to explore film opportunities while still enrolled in school,” Black List founder Franklin Leonard said in a statement. “We thought it only appropriate that we give screenwriters with scripts hosted on our site the opportunity to connect with those students if they so desire. Chapman University students will be the first to have that access, but I doubt that they will be the last, and we encourage any other program that would like its students to have this opportunity to get in touch.”

“These individual memberships will prove invaluable for our producing and directing students who will become the next Justin Simien and Matt and Ross Duffer, among recent Chapman graduates of whom we are enormously proud,” commented Bob Bassett, dean of Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. “It will undoubtedly prove to be a great tool for our students who look to make independent features while they are in school and/or after graduation. The Black List has proven essential for our own production company, Chapman Filmed Entertainment, which is funding and readying for production a script we found on the Black List website — Ride Share by Matt Tente.”

Since its launch in 2012, the Black List data base has hosted more than 25,000 screenplays and completed more than 50,000 script evaluations. At any given moment, more than 3,000 screenplays and television pilots are on the site. It has resulted in five produced features, including Katie Says Goodbye by Wayne Roberts, which premiered at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

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